En Route
by Aearwen22
Summary: Elrond and Galadriel have a discussion while traveling to the Undying Lands


Elrond sighed and slipped quietly back to the open deck of the Swan Ship, giving a quick and sorrowful glance at the stern, beyond which remained the children and friends he'd left behind. He arched his neck back to stretch a bit before squaring his shoulders and walking forward toward the prow. There, past the horizon toward which the ship steadily moved, waited Valinor and Celebrían and hopefully the kind of healing that his shattered soul desperately needed.

Here and there, on seats that ringed the smooth deck, sat others of his people, some too weary to pay much attention to their surroundings, others staring fixedly at the endless waves. Only one or two marked his passage past them with the faintest of nods, nods that received an equally faint response. There was a silence onboard that spoke less of peace and more of a reluctant submission. With few exceptions, each of those present had left someone or something of irreplaceable value behind.

Elrond was exhausted beyond anything he'd experienced in well over an Age. Just those few months between the high celebrations in Minas Tirith and the day he'd looked over his shoulder for a last time at his home in Imladris had made him appreciate what it meant to the Second-born to age. The destruction of the One Ring had killed Vilya in the process; and without that added strength enhancing and supporting his own, he had few reserves left. And finally, the psychic wounding that had been his farewells to his beloved children – especially knowing himself utterly sundered from Arwen for the rest of time – had left him emotionally shattered and hollow. How he would face Celebrían with the news that she would never see at least one, possibly all, of her children again?

The Hobbits, who at the moment lay sleeping in their tiny cabin below under the influence of a tea of chamomile and other herbs, remained in incredibly fragile health. In some ways, this voyage taxed what little reserves the Shirefolk retained almost past endurance. He'd expected it of Bilbo, who was among one of the most long-lived Hobbits ever known, but Frodo's condition shocked him. Mithrandir – no, not Mithrandir for much longer; he'd have to get used to calling him Olórin now – worried at him once long ago that the One Ring had scoured Frodo harder than any might realize. The wizard had been right.

And then there was Galadriel. As always, she stood at the very prow of the Swan Ship, her hand resting on the carven keel that rose high above her head, gazing steadily westward. She spared little time gazing backwards toward the east and the husband she left behind once Ennor slipped below the horizon. Almost immediately she had chosen her spot at the prow of the ship and then never bothered to stir from it. Elrond couldn't help wondering just how much the death of Nenya had taken from her – had it left her as psychically naked and vulnerable as the loss of Vilya had left him?

Elrond moved to the other side of the prow and gazed up at the stern face of the wooden swan, and then let his attention wander out over the water – to find that all was silvery-grey. It seemed to him as if all the brash colors that had been Middle-earth had evaporated, leaving the canvas of the sky and that which stretched below it plain and ready for new colors to be added. The blandness suited his mood – nothing either in the sky or on the water caught or held the eye, nothing stood out and demanded attention. The scenery along the Straight Path neither excited nor distressed, but simply _was_ in a place neither here nor there_._

Beside him, the gentle breeze lifted the ends of Galadriel's hair away from her body, hair that shone golden and warm against the visual chill of the silvery-grey sky that surrounded them now. Her face looked as if chiseled from ice, its expression hard, cold, unchanging. She didn't shift her gaze, but Elrond knew that she was aware of his approach – aware and unmoved by it.

A sparkle from the hand that clung lightly to the raised prow caught his eye, and he realized that Galadriel still wore Nenya. Strange, that – he himself had found on the very first day after the destruction of Sauron that the dead ring of power worn on his hand as always had weighed even more heavily on his _fae _than it had when alive and active and useful. He had quickly removed the ring to the safety of a small, satin pouch he now wore about his neck until he could return it to Celebrimbor. Surely Nenya weighed equally heavily on Galadriel – what perverse pleasure must she derive from wearing it now?

"It reminds me of what I am not," she intoned solemnly, not taking her eyes from the western horizon, "and of my folly in wishing for that which I neither needed nor deserved. I wear it as a penance, and will do so for as long as I am allowed to possess it."

Elrond had long since grown used to his mother-in-law's uncanny ability to know the thoughts of those who approached her. "You are too hard on yourself. When offered that which would have given you everything you'd ever wanted – and supreme power over all you surveyed as well, you turned away. Frodo told us of his offer to you – and of your reply. You have nothing to apologize or do penance for any longer. Your debt is paid."

"Perhaps," she offered, a ghost of a smile haunting her lips, "perhaps not. But I will wear Nenya until I can offer her back to her creator, to remind me that power should never be an end unto itself – for in that way lies misery and destruction." Finally she tipped her head enough to glance at him, and in them Elrond saw a depth of exhaustion and sadness that easily matched his own. "You should rest, my friend."

"As should you," he returned in the same tone, knowing in a moment of contrary amusement that neither of them would rest until the solid soil of Tol Eressëa lay beneath their feet. He trained his eye on the western horizon and let the silvery calm of sky and sea smooth the surface of his mind for a long moment. "Do you think there will be healing for us there?"

"For you? Oh, yes." The golden head gave a barely perceptible nod. "Your burden was a long and lonely one, with one loss compounding the next. The damage to your _fae _is deep. In truth, I sometimes wonder how you can continue to keep faith with the Valar after all you have gone through."

Elrond turned to look at her directly. "You do not foresee healing for yourself? Your _fae _is no less damaged than mine."

A delicate shoulder lifted slightly and then dropped. "I choose not to speculate about my own future. I know that what comes to me now will depend entirely on whether or not I learned the lessons that my time in exile had to teach me. As for the condition of my _fae,_ I bear full responsibility for it."

He shook his head. "By that definition, then, I am as responsible for the condition of my _fae _as you are for yours. But it _was _our responsibility to remain for as long as we did, to fight the Long Defeat, to keep and use our rings only for protection and good even while hiding them from the Enemy…"

Galadriel had returned her gaze to the distant western horizon, and the expression on her face softened slightly. "Yes, it was your responsibility to do those things. You were born to Ennor. You took an oath to protect and nurture your brother's line, to maintain a refuge where all who were weary could find shelter and rest. You used Vilya to heal, to nurture and to protect. You turned away from power early on when it was offered to you, and became the wisest of us. As for me, I…"

She paused, thinking. "I came to Middle-earth with an eye to conquer and rule. My motivations in using Nenya were not so pure and clear-cut as yours. You defended your world and those you loved within it, which was the right thing to do and the right motivation to do it. What I did…" She sighed, and her expression hardened again. "What I did, I did because at first I thought I deserved more than was offered me. I took Nenya, believing that I deserved her – and I used her to protect Lórien and remove it, as much as I could, from Middle-earth and create a little piece of Valinor. Yes, I protected and aided those who fought the Enemy, as I did – but only when it served my purpose. Of late, what I have done, I was pushed into doing – by circumstances or by the Valar, if you choose to believe they had a hand in the events just past."

"Even so…"

"Elrond." Her voice, shimmered with deep emotion, stopped him from saying more. "I have learned the error of my thinking during these long _yeni _away from my home and my people – while I watched those I cared about in Middle-earth struggle and perish. I return now perhaps not in disgrace, but certainly diminished and rebuked for my audacity nonetheless." She leaned against the high prow as if suddenly robbed of her strength. "Look at me. I, who prided myself on being one of the strongest and wisest of all Elves in Middle-earth, who single-handedly cast down the Enemy's stronghold in the heart of the forest such a short time ago, cannot even summon the strength to remain with my husband until he has let go of his fondness for Arda Marred. All that I desired, Elrond, I gained – and have now lost. In returning home, I am defeated."

"You're wrong." His words had the desired effect. He saw her blink in surprise and then turn her entire attention to him. "You survived. You not only survived, but prevailed. You saw Morgoth thrown down, and now have seen his chief apprentice thrown down as well. And you did so not from the safety of Elvenhome, but from the front lines of that battle. Yes, you were prideful and ambitious – but your hands remain unstained from any Kinslaying, and when offered what lesser men and elves could not resist, you turned away." At long last, Elrond put out a gentle hand to touch her upper arm. "You won, Galadriel. You won, when so many others perished or turned away and kept to the safety of Elvenhome. And you have paid the price for that victory. Celeborn remains behind – but he will return to you in time. He now makes his choice and must live with the consequences. I have to admit that I feel relieved to know my children will not be without some wise counsel in the years ahead, thanks to his stubbornness."

She sighed again and leaned her forehead against the silver wood of the prow as she stared back out over the silver water. "But I don't know how I shall survive without him, Elrond," she confessed in a whisper. "Until we were far enough underway that there was no turning back, I did not understand how much of my strength depended on his standing at my side – I didn't realize how much of my strength was actually his. And now that I _do_ understand, I cannot show him…"

"I understand that feeling myself all too well," Elrond admitted, understanding at last the heart of her weakness and despair. "And I cannot promise that the _yeni _that stretch between now and when you see him again will be easy ones for either of you. But consider this: by the time he returns to you, you will be able to serve as his anchor and strength while he heals – for remaining behind will be the hardest thing he has ever endured." His grey eyes clouded as he remembered the pain of knowing that it was his responsibility to be left behind while his beloved took ship. "It must be this way, or my own hopes are in vain."

Galadriel's hand reached out and touched Elrond's upper arm in a mirror action to his. "She will be there, and she will be healed, as you say, so that she can be your anchor and strength while you are healed yourself," she promised. "The Valar would not ask so much of you – take so much from you – and then deprive you of your solace when you come to them having finished all they asked of you."

Elrond struggled against the pressing desire to weep, and finally swallowed hard to tamp the tears back down. He let his gaze rest on the western horizon without striving to see beyond it. "You know, I wonder now if the endless hours of the Straight Path, where all around us is almost as empty as the Void itself, exists so that we have a chance to think through the purpose of our lives in Arda. If we are wise, we can use the time to settle that part of our lives that is finished now, so we can leave everything belonging to that world behind us when we step ashore in Valinor."

"If we are wise," Galadriel repeated his words. "A very conditional opportunity – so fitting with the nature of the Valar."

"If you say so," Elrond shrugged. "You know them better than I do."

Again her lips quirked with a hint of a smile. "Perhaps, and perhaps not. You forget that even I followed Fëanor, although I did so as much out of loyalty to my father's choice as anything else. I am nothing if not a rebel. What I best know of the Valar is that against which I set my fate and my hopes long ago."

A chilled breeze caught at hair and robes, and Elrond shivered as a heavy mist settled over the water and the ship. The endless silver sea had vanished, and even the stern face of the carved swan on the prow above his head was lost to sight in the mist. Sounds of consternation and then distress began arising from those who had been too wearied or defeated to note anything else just moments earlier as the ship began to toss and turn as if upon a stormy deep; and, oddly enough, Elrond felt Galadriel's hand seeking and then slipping into his. Having nothing to offer her but his own unease, he closed his fingers around hers and, together, they stared forward into utter nothingness.

Just when it seemed as if the ship were going to founder and swamp, the seas calmed again and the mist that had swallowed them started to thin. Elrond turned and saw the pale, frightened faces of his fellow passengers become visible again, finding many of them had found reason to cling together. A tiny sound from Galadriel made him glance down at where their hands were joined to discover that he was clinging so tightly to her that his knuckles were white. With a gasp of apology, he loosed her hand and saw some of the tightness in her expression immediately ease.

"Look!"

Elrond's head swiveled to find the owner of the voice, and then again to follow the extended finger that pointed forward. Beyond the prow, the mist had completely dissipated, and on the very edge of the silvery sea could be discerned a very thin, green line. He heard Galadriel gasp, and turned to see her leaning forward with a hand at her lips, her gaze both wistful and excited. "Almost home!" he heard her whisper to herself.

"Almost home," he whispered too. Somewhere, on that thin green line that was growing slowly but steadily closer on the horizon, was Celebrían. And from now on, wherever she was, _that_ would be home for him, as it had always been meant to be. Already his heart was lighter with the sense of release from a Longing that had held him prisoner for so long that he could hardly remember a day without it.

The losses he endured still ached desperately, however, as did the thought that he would have to share some of them with Celebrían. Nothing would ever change the fact that neither of them would ever see Arwen again, or that her brothers were remaining with her until her death before making up their minds if they would follow their parents or their sister and foster-brother. Vilya was still dead and suspended in a satin bag hanging from his neck, and the added stamina it had lent him for so long a gaping vacuum in his _fae_. He was still exhausted far more than he'd ever been in his very long life. But that thin line of green meant the greatest sorrow he'd ever faced was nearly finished, if all the tales of Elvenhome were true.

Behind him, he heard the stir and then the voices of two sleepy hobbits, freshly roused from their slumber and guided to the deck by Mithra… Olórin. Bilbo sounded a little more animated than he had for years, and a quick glance at Frodo found a hint of color where pallor and illness had been before. All about them, those who had been sitting listlessly now stirred themselves, as if a corner of the pall of doom that had covered them had been lifted, letting the light of hope and healing penetrate slightly. They were not yet healed of the wounds they carried, but they knew themselves close to where such a thing could be found.

As did Elrond. He straightened his back and brushed his hands down his robe. The time for doubt and worry had ended with the thinning of the mist over the ship. His future, as free from sorrow and strife as was possible, awaited him on those green and growing shores. The healer in him was ready to be healed.


End file.
